Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Fred's Setup Thread

My speakers are supposed to ship today, so its time to get serious about setting them up. For starters, I moved the furniture around on the weekend and did a little cleanup.

I also took a look at cable options. I may end up with flat cable for certain sections, but decided to go with 12 guage speaker wire from home depot for starters (~$.50 per foot).

Once I moved the furniture I noticed a few things that were not obvious from the (not quite to scale) drawing.

1. The couch on the left side will block the bottom of the main speaker on the left side if I place it 1' from the wall(dotted blue line below). The distance from the front of the speaker to the couch is 2'. How much will this affect the sound at the seating position?

2. It will not be that hard to put the surrounds directly at the side (red x below) of the couch cieling mounted instead of on the rear wall. The advantage of this position is that the left speaker will not be firing into the corner quite as much (3ft. vs 1ft). With the rear position, I can mount the speakers lower down. Are there any strong advantages to either position? I also noticed that in the rear position they will be outside the recommended 90-110 degrees off axis recommended by Axiom/thx.



I have put blue boxes for the two most convenient locations for the sub, but will do the sub crawl to see whats best.

I'm looking forward to your comments and suggestions.

My RF speaker was partially "blocked" by a couch. I'm not sure how much effect it had, but, boy, did it bother me. It was a futon with an extra mattress for comfort. I ditched the extra (guests should be focused on the speakers anyway ).

Although moving the speaker out a little may make the area impassable, I find the long walk around to be preferable to any sacrifice, however marginal, in SQ, real or imagined.

Fred, everything looks good so far. I'd definitely try out the surrounds in both positions to see which sounds best. Will you put them on stands if you place them on the side?

I think you will get better bass reinforcement with the sub in the corner behind the couch. It may be more localized in that position, especially if you plan to listen to music, but it may work good for movies. You know what I'd do? Get two subs and utilize both positions!

As for the couch blocking the speaker. . .it's not ideal, but, hey, what can you do? Sometimes home decor isn't fair for those of us without a dedicated room. As long as you get some clearance over the arm of the sofa with the drivers you should be okay. Have you thought about risers to lift the speakers up a bit?

I think for your side surrounds if you were to mount them about mid way between the back wall and beside the couch you would achieve the best surround field, it should be possible as you were thinking of ceiling mounting them anyway.

So far s the LF main, you will just have to play with it to find out how much it affects it. I have my M22s upstairs in such a positon and I haven't noticed much of an issue, then again I don't listen critically up there either.

For the sub, the back corner is probably the better place as the forward/mid wall position kind of duplicates the LF speaker situation, with the RF main sitting in behind the sub. I also found that having my sub shooting across the front of my mains didn't quite sound right in my room.

I have a similar arrangement with two couches as you do. The left front looks funky, but everything sounds just fine. The tweeters are above the arm rest, so I suspect it doesn’t degrade SQ at all. I moved my 600 all over the room with the corner position as my first choice, but I ended up placing it right where your mid room X is. When the sub is too close to the listening position, I can identify where it is by sound….which is a bad thing. Moving it to the mid wall evened out LFE throughout the room.

Yeah, I don't see the partially blocked speaker as being a problem. At any given time, one or both of my M80s is partially blocked by toys, boxes, fans, the door... No problems with SQ here, but clearly I'm not the most discerning listener.

Thanks for the feedback.

LF Speaker
- tweeters won't be blocked
- I will have to play a bit with couch positioning to see if it affects anything.

Surrounds
- no stands, it will be wall or ceiling mount
- I will probably get a cople of construction grade 1x4s I can wedge in position to try them behind and beside to see whats best

Sub
- why stop at two? sigh...
- I may actually attempt a DIY since I like to build stuff but that won't be for a while.

That brings me to another setup item: level matching. Most folks seem to use the Radioshack spl meter and there are correction charts for it, but its not available here in Canada any more. The source carries a Scorsche meter, but I don't know if there are any correction charts for it.

Also, having done the 'clap test', I know have a very 'live' room and may end up wanting to quantify that a little. I have seen suggestions on hometheatershack.com for using a full range mike (30Hz-10kHz I think) to see what frequencies are boosted by the room. Has anyone taken this approach?

I got an email on Friday saying my stuff would ship Today, but have not received an email confirmation as of 3:45pm. Its a good thing I have stuff to keep me occupied for the next couple of days.

Its off to home depot tomorrow for lumber and wire. I still need to find an area rug too.

Eh, I wouldn't stress on the correction charts; just leveling the channels is really important, and you'll be doing that with pink noise anyway.

How do you level match (or equalize with a bfd down the road) a sub with an spl meter that is not accurate below 100Hz??

Eh... I just pretend it is. It seems to work out ok. I don't do any equalizing.

Hrmpf!! Fine for you maybe, but us Germans have this thing about Swiss precision.

Heh... I'm just saying that having a sound meter is better than not having one at all, even if it may be inaccurate at lower frequencies.

Sonicboom still carries the RS meter up here:
RS analog meter

That AVIA + SPL combo deal at Sonicboom for $99 is a pretty fair deal when considering I just bought a new Avia II DVD and a used Radio Shack SPL off Ebay for $83 combined (shipping included).

Thanks Doormat, I had forgotten about them. I already have the DVE disk, so I don't need AVIA.

I don't have the RS meter, I bought one from an electronics shop in town. link It seems to work very well.

What you want for your sub is this.

http://www.rivesaudio.com/software/TestCD.html

This cd has test tracks that are corrected for the radio shack slp meter. So it is accurate below 100 Hz unlike the other suggestions. Track 32 to 40 are the important ones to find the best location for your sub. Those tracks have the corrected 20, 25, 31.5, 40, 50 63 80 100 and 125 Hz test tones. So here is what you do: Set your sub crossover to bypass and your receiver crossover to 80 Hz. Find the 3 or 4 different locations that you want to put the sub and run the tone tests with the rives cd from tracks 32 to 40. You want to run the test tones with the phase at 0 and then 180 degrees in each location. Keep a chart of all of this information. The best location and phase will be the one with the flattest frequency response. Since you are getting full range speakers (m60's or m80's) you could also test each location and phase with different crossovers for the front speakers as well, but only if your receiver allows for the mains to be crossed differently that the center and surrounds. For example in the first location run the test tones with 40Hz, 50Hz, 60Hz, 70Hz and 80Hz each with 0 and 180 deg on the phase setting. So that is a total of 10 runs that you have recorded in your chart for the first location. Repeat this with each possible sub location and pick out which location has the flattest frequency response in your range.

For my room I ran the tone tests for about 3 or 4 locations and it turned out that 80Hz worked out best for the crossover with my m22's. I tried 60 and 70Hz as well but the frequency response was a huge mess. The phase makes a huge difference when trying to match your mains to the sub. In one phase setting my frequency response was +/- 8 dB from 25 Hz to 160 Hz and with the other phase setting it is +/- 2dB. That is what my in room response is right now. You can't get much better that than since the tolerance on the Outlaw sub is only +/- 2dB. So all this work is definitely worth the effort.

- Nick

I forgot to mention that the rives test cd has corrected tracks for the radio shack meter from 20Hz up to 20,000Hz if you want to see what your in room frequency response is. Those are tracks 32 to 62 on the cd. Yes you are taking only 30 measurements from 20 to 20,000 Hz, but they are accurate and will at least give you an idea of how much your room is causing problems.

- Nick

Hmm, that second part about corrected up to 20,000 Hz, got my attention. Combined with REW to automate the data collection it could be interesting.

After all the stuff I have read about room effects and correction, I am curious to know what my room will do to the response of the M80s.

Wow.. and I thought I could just unpack my speakers today, lay some cable, and I'd be good to go

Man.. I didn't realize what I was getting into when I thought 'Geez.. some speakers would be really nice down here.'

Welcome to the hobby... Now, if you're only doing stereo, you're fine. But if you're doing surround, at a minimum you should balance the levels.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. I get pretty obsesive about stuff I get into. I don't think level matching is all that hard to do. For the rest of it, if your setup sounds good to you, don't worry about it. If you want to play...

Don't worry too much. They will still blow you away right out of the box. In fact, I'd suggest not tweaking them at all for a while so you can then get an ear for when you start to tweak them.

Tweaking is addictive and you can create great results with a little work but then the laws of diminishing returns seem to start to apply but you are already addicted and it's too late.

I wouldn't start tweaking them, but I would level match them. Massive improvement in surround material that way, not to mention much less boomy or anemic bass.

4:45am Today Fred checks mail:

Your speakers have shipped, please allow two days for tracking stuff to show up on purolator website.

zzzzzzzzzzz

12:37 pm Fred wakes up:

Hmmm.... click... copy.... click... Wa???

"Attempted Delivery - Receiver Unavailable GUELPH, ON"

They hit the sorting plant in TO last night after 11:00pm!!

Now I gotta pick them up... in my escort wagon!!!

This is gonna be fun.

One at a time...

That could take me out to the projected delivery date!

Today was supposed to be cable day. busy, busy...

I was able to get my Monitor 11 (taller than the M80s) 5.1 system with Rx and some metal stands into my Mazda 323 with the hatch closed. You'd be amazed at what can fit in a small car. Just don't bring along any passengers.

Hmm. I was going to bring my son along so he could hold the sub onto the roof.

Change of plan. I should have read the ups tag a little closer, the speakers wouldn't have been at the store for pickup until tomorrow so I arranged for them to deliver again. I'm borrowing a cart (or whatever you call those things) from the building super to haul the speakers up 3 flights of stairs. That should make things a lot simpler.

Agreed. I was thinking in stereo mode. Level matching your surround system is a very good thing to do right off the bat.

Quick cabling question. I stopped at the local ratshack... er Source to check out sub cables and came away a little confused.

What is the difference between a standard RCA speaker cable and a sub cable. From some quick reading on audioholics, they are both coax. Are they basically the same thing with the sub cable being a single wire?

I was planning on picking up standard 12 guage speaker wire at Home Depot, but thinking on it, this stuff is not shielded. Is this a problem?

Absolutely nothing.

Also, no.

OK, so I can use so I can use standard single wire speaker wire from Home Depot for my sub run as well (assuming they have RCA connectors I can attach myself. Cool. I hate spending $$ on stuff that adds no value.

Off to make supper and then for a stop at home depot on the way to work.

I'm probably gonna be running on 4 hours sleep tomorrow. I love my sleep.

err, no. No, don't use speaker wire for your sub. Use a regular RCA cable for that.

I believe it is better to use coax cable/RCA cable for your sub runs as the signal is low voltage and the shielding the coax offers I think helps stop signal degradation, especially for long runs.

OK, gotcha. Regular cable for everything but the sub, RCA (shielded) cable for the sub. Thanks.

The spragius is good. Off to Home Depot.

have you looked at monoprice for your cables?

I just paid $5 for a 10 foot HDMI cable the other day and the quality is top notch

Totally agreed on the Monoprice recommendation, but my guess is Fred can't wait nearly that long.

Nope, I wasn't organized enough to order ahead and I couldn't wait. I also don't need any sort of brand, Monoprice included, behind my cable. If standard wire works, its fine by me.

I picked up my wire yesterday on the way to work. Unfortunately, it looks like 12 guage will not fit into the clips on my Sherwood receiver. Doh!

You can just trim the strands on the end. It won't affect audio quality.

Thats what I'm doing.

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the big 500 posts before my speakers arrive?

I swear I heard the sound of a jaw hitting the floor and a sniffle come from the general direction of my Panasonic Mini stereo when the first box arrived.

I must say I am impressed with Purolator and particularly with the driver! I fully expected him to put the boxes in the front lobby and let me take it from there. He helped me, or should I say I helped him, haul all the boxes up 3 flights of stairs.

gotta go play.

OOOOO play time!

That could be the fastest delivery-to-picture-post time EVER.

Have fun, Fred!

Not all the driver's are jerks, most I have found are willing to help, especially if they have the time to do so.

I'm just so excited to share



Jason. I wasn't suggesting that I was expecting a jerk. Not only was this guy helpfull but he was down right happy the whole time. And he wasn't 20 anymore either.

Courtious delivery to the lobby would have been good service. Dilivery to my livingroom was above average. The cheerfulness was exceptional.

Off to work. Its going to be a looong night.

How did you get a picture of Ken's living room? Or was that his spare room before the kid arrived?

New speakers and you didn't call in sick? Priorities, anyone? Now we all have to wait with you till you get them setup, at least you are not alone.

Now, now, our floor doesn't look like that, and our couch is green!

...but the rest of your livingroom is a mess like mine?

Hmm... looking at the first picture I thought my livinroom was in decent shape, but after moving furniture and putting away random stuff (and then looking at the bottom of my feet, I think a little more cleaning is in order before I put down any more wire.

No Jason. I never learned how to phone in sick for work. If I wasn't saving my vacation time to spend with my kids I probably would have taken a day off.

Man am I tired tonight...

Living room, kitchen, back room...I have a 13 month old. And we're also... not exactly the neatest people in the world.

Congrats on the new speakers, Fred!


Okay already, you can wipe the smile off your face. . .

...after a week or so.

Tomorrow's plan. Hook up mains, hook up PC to reciever, turn on... and then I can work on the rest (yes I will turn he receiver off before I hook up the cables.

My house was much cleaner and tidier before the kids came and the carpet was actually one color.

You forgot to add.... post some pics of the setting up phase

Fred, what receiver are you using? I know you've told us before... short-term memory!

Short term what? Just a sec, gotta look... RD6500

After much fiddling I am... nowhere.

I moved the puter and hooked it up to the receiver. It took me a while, but I got the receiver configured for Optical Digital In (all manual). One minor glitch, the display is still in the bedroom because the receiver is on top of the stand for easy access. I had to pull the crt off my old pc and move it into the livinroom.

So I popped in a CD and... nothing. I double checked all my settings on the receiver and they are OK. According to the manual a pulsing digital input label means no signal. Sigh.

I looked high and low in Vista and there is no indication of anything relating to passing PCM. The audio driver interface indicates that optical out is connected and working. Sigh.

When I pull up the profile for the interface PCM is not shown as a supported format. I have no idea if it is even considered a 'format'.

The first thing I will try tomorrow is analog out from the computer. I need mini-jack to RCA connectors though.

If anyone else has any suggestions or insights I would appreciate it.

PCM basically justs means (as I understand it) taking the raw digital off the disc and putting it onto the wire. Are you getting Windows sounds out of it?

I know, but it would be nice to have some indication that it is indeed being passed. I didn't have time to try any windows sounds, but with the receiver indicating that its not getting anything in over optical I don't think windows sounds will work.

I guess I'm trying to figure out if there is some way to confirm what is happening at each stage.

Double check your connections on both ends. It's possible you've got the ins and the outs mixed up. Of course, that's never happened to any of us...

There might be an answer here, Fred. But maybe not.

I Finally managed to get sound out of my speakers using analog out on the onboard audio and CD in on the receiver. As soon as I pluged the left and right outputs in, I got an audio popup to configure the outputs. It came as speaker out( no option to assign L/R so they are hooked up backwards right now).

Seeing as I don't have any sort of speaker/audio out option on the digital output, it looks like the onboard audio won't send an audio stream over spdif. I bet when I connect the Display and play a movie it will send everything over the digital channel. If it only sends video then I will suspect audio DRM.

Seems sort of foolish to not to have an option to redirect audio streams to the connector of choice.

I had to haul my 21" viewsonic out of the bedroom to fiddle with the audio settings on Vista.

I managed to pack all the foam corners into one of the big boxes. Now I need to figure out where to put it.



Now that I have tunes, I can take my time with the rest of the setup. Funny thing though, max volume only gives me about 75-80db. I bet its something in the onboard audio.

Maybe you already mentioned somewhere, but what motherboard do you have? I had trouble with my digital output on my motherboard at first. I switched it to digital, but I couldn't get any sound. I don't remember what steps I took, but I had to play with it. I have the Asus P5E.

My problem is that the DVD volume seems to be a lot lower than my other sound. So turning my AudioByte system all of the way up for a DVD doesn't give me enough volume, but I have no problem with the loudness of the music and other sound.

Its a Gigabyte GA- MA69G-S3H. It was the best HTPC board when I bought just before Christmas. At the time I was only planning on stereo sound for the first while so I didn't really look into audio out options that much.

Back to work...

Buttons, I love buttons
Latest update. All the speakers are up and I have verified that I can get sound out of them.

I tried popping in a movie to see if I got sound through the optical connection saw a 5.1 audio format. No luck so far, but I havn't pushed all the buttons yet. Dire Straits in cave mode sans sub is... interesting. LOTR with just LFE sent to the mains (virtual buttons on sound drivers are cool too!) is also quite interesting.

The receiver instructions are a little, um, sparse so I need to fiddle to see exactly what each setting does.

Here is a pic of one QS8 about to be hung on my fancy hanger thingy.


Black on black dosn't work very well.

After much button pushing I think that my receiver is not working properly.

With multiple outputs to test, my pc audio drivers perform consitantly. If I select an audio out source before starting the cd, It will switch to the appropriate output. I could switch back and forth between Display audio (HDMI) and analog audio just fine. When I switch to the activated digital out, the receiver sees nothing. It seems reasonable to assume that since the other two outputs work as expected that the digital out is working as well.

Darn. When I picked up this receiver cheap all I wanted it for was to drive M80s for two channel. Its doing that just fine. I didn't expect to have the funds for a full system so quickly.

Looks like my next option is to do 5.1 analog out from the computer and use the receiver strictly as an amp until I have the funds for a proper receiver.

I still havn't reproduced that weird cave effect again.

Just a few thoughts.

Have you tried another optical cable to make sure the one your using isn’t bad?

Do you have the latest drivers for your motherboard?

If your motherboard has HDMI audio make sure it’s sending the digital audio to the SPDIF output and not HDMI, it may not support both at the same time.

If your receiver has HDMI why are you messing with optical audio?

If you haven’t, try sending something other than PCM over the optical to see if the receiver sees that.

If you have access to another device that has optical output see if the receiver recognizes that. Also try another receiver if you can access one.

I think your motherboard supports an add-on SPDIF dongle that has both optical and coax outputs you might try ordering one to see if that works.

Lastly you might try a dedicated sound card. Many people don’t ever get there onboard audio to work properly.

I’ve been through HTPC audio hell so I feel your pain.

Good luck,
Dean

I just want to say right here that next time I do a HTPC build, I want Dean to come clean up the mess. His articulation of the logic paths continues to humble me. Mad problem-solving skills.

I also had trouble with the SPDIF output from my MSI K8N board. I finally just gave up and bought the Creative outboard USB card that Room EQ Wizard likes to work with.

Absolutely correct Sir Tuttle. Thats a well organized list of suggestions. I'm running short on sleep these days and am probably going about this in a less than optimal way.

A few answers:

1. No. I suppose if I'm gonna buy a few more cables, I may as well try that.

2. Yes

3. Checked that. It seems to only send over one output at a time, but I can switch manually and it works switching between HDMI and analog out.

4. It dosn't have HDMI (picked up as a short term solution)

5. Tried with a movie as well. I don't have any cables handy to connect from the receiver to the display (am using HDMI to sent video directly to the display, which may be another Rats nest).

6. Don't have another device nor easy access to one.

7. I thought about this, but its a special order and may end up as 'good money chasing bad'

8. Could order a sound card, but $100 gets me the next gen AMD2+ mobo

There are a lot of options here with no guarantee of success. Since I didn't buy the receiver new from a local B&M I can't take it anywhere easily to test the inputs.

The simplest option right now seems to be to spend a few $ on pc analog audio cables to connect to the receiver that way. I know it works.

As was mentioned in my last post, this is an interim solution so if I can get it to work for a while, even with less than optimal analog conversion in the PC, thats fine.

At this point, I want to wait 6-8 months for all the newest gen receivers to be released and evaluated by the early adopters so I can figure out what is going to work best for me.

I still need to sort out how best to do audio from flac or similar through a receiver. Once I figure that out, I will know what feature set to look for in a receiver and how much I really need to spend.

I swear that the people that design these things and write the manuals have no clue how they are going to be used. I think Gigabyte and AMD tried hard on this board, and they came really close, but the didn't close the 'last mile' gap.

Keep me posted, willya?

I evaluated what seems like 20 different music software front-ends. Fatal flaws abound. I'm using Winamp at the moment, but Media Monkey seems to do some stuff I like. I'm sure I just need some Axiom beer-bro consultation. Stupid space-time continuum.

Oh, you were talking about hardware, weren't you?

You can’t switch to “digital?” In VISTA it should be under Start>Control Panel>Sound; in XP Start>Control Panel>Sounds and Audio Devices>Audio. Should say something like “Realtek Digital Output” If it’s not there then either you have the wrong or bad drivers (check both Windows Update and Realtek) or a bad/disconnected optical output. There shouldn’t be a cable for onboard digital but double check that if there is that it’s connected. Also try disconnecting the HDMI cable and just run VGA to a regular monitor to see if that allows optical output to your receiver.


If you don’t see the option for “Digital Audio” or can’t select it then this is likely the source of your problem.


If in the Realtek settings you are telling it to send PCM that’s what it’s trying to send. PCM is the source of most problems I’ve encountered so make sure you told the Realtek software and Windows if necessary to send AC3 or something else other than PCM. In Realtek select “Output digital audio source” and start with the lowest sampling rate.


True but eventually you are going to want digital rather than analog and if nothing else works it’s likely cheaper than a new soundcard, receiver (unless you are upgrading now) or motherboard. Also for some reason I’ve seen fewer problems with digital coax connections than with optical, no idea why.


True but it’s still onboard audio which always seems more finicky than a dedicated soundcard for anything but analog. If you do go this route try to make sure it has a digital coax as these seem less troublesome than optical.


You are in a troubleshooting nightmare right now because you have no know good components. You really need to “bracket” the problem (e.g. is the PC sending digital, is the cable transmitting it, can the receiver read it. Without knowing what works there is no way to know what to tweak, fix or replace.

If you don’t have a friend who’s house you can take the PC to and hook it up, you could try taking the PC to a shop and ask them to troubleshoot it. If it works for them you know for sure it’s something with the receiver, or they may figure out why the PC isn’t sending. It will cost but may in the long run be cheaper than randomly replacing components.


Now you just need to add a Denon to the mix cause their manuals are just awesome.

Lastly, unless you have reason to suspect your receiver hardware or setup the most likely issue is the PC especially if it’s DIY. Receivers have few user defined variables whereas DIY PCs are chalk full of them.

Tom, Fred thanks for the complements. I troubleshoot airplanes for a living …very similar to your vaporators in most respects.

Cheers,
Dean

P.S. One last thing. Start simple. Concentrate on getting Windows sounds like kcarlile said then use the Realtek test tones to work before using a DVD, CD or audio file.

Actually I was thinking software and hardware. There have been some comments here about streaming audio over network wire into the 3808.

Care to share your list of 20 and some comments. Perhaps the 3 most promising?

If you're just after playing 2-channel music over the net, the Airport Express seems like the path of least resistance.

Well, if you have the existing setup for it (eg, all of your music in iTunes).

Well, I don't have the 3808, but have always been intrigued by using its GUI interface instead of a PC-based application.

Since I have a PC co-located with the TV and receiver, I've just been focusing on PC-based software (I have the PC video output going to both a small LCD monitor and to the TV). I am pretty frugal and not a big fan of Microcult, so there are probably many obvious options that I dismissed because I wanted to find something to work in my existing, stable, paid-for environment.

I didn't want to buy either Vista or MCE. I'm perfectly content with 4 machines on XP at the moment. I don't remember why I didn't like WMP, but it could just be a philosophical aversion.

I just ran Cat5 everywhere. The only thing that's wireless is the Wii (and the laptop, when somebody needs to use it).

I haven't really embraced a need for controlling home automation or streaming media other than music, so you have to evaluate your content needs pretty thoroughly. For instance, I LIKE using the D*TV DVR, so I don't need PC-based DVR/TV functionality. Likewise, I got just tired of effing around with trying to play DVD's via a PC and decided that a dedicated Oppo was the best, simplest solution.

Erik Solheim has a good HTPC software roundup.

iTunes doesn't do FLAC.

I thought that Slimserver/Softsqueeze was going to be "it", but it didn't handle playlists at all, and my dream of whole-house audio via PC's was quashed when synchronized playback systematically became non-synchronized. I haven't had time to try Squeezecentre yet, but that might be worth a shot.

I tried to use my D*TV HR20 to stream music, and I did get proof-of-concept. But it doesn't really do lists well, either, and the interface just wasn't efficient and elegant.

xLobby is pretty good, but it is designed to do a lot more than I really need. The GUI wasn't intuitive for me. Same thing with Media Portal.

Winamp is my current favorite. The interface makes sense, and it is pretty powerful. Not quite as "pretty" though.

Ray3 is convinced that the PS3 is the answer to all streaming needs. He might be right. I don't have one yet.

I've been enjoying the tagging, conversion and organizing features in MediaMonkey a lot lately.

One of the interesting things about this topic is that there seems to be pretty constant and vibrant development occurring. I just became aware of Elisa which might cost me a few hours.

I also made good use of the flac2mp3 utility. After ripping everything to FLAC, I still wanted to make compressed copies available to my family for iPods, and this worked pretty well (although it does not currently pass the cover art along).